Pima County sheriff's deputies' trauma-care training aided victims

by Ofelia Madrid - Jan. 22, 2011 12:00 AMThe Arizona Republic

Moments after arriving on the most horrific shooting scene he had experienced in his 10 years on the force, Pima County sheriff's Deputy Gilbert Caudillo urgently told dispatchers, "Send every ambulance we have."

Caudillo was among the first law-enforcement officers to respond to the Jan. 8 mass shooting north of Tucson that left six people dead and 13 wounded, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

The next few minutes "felt like forever," Caudillo said Friday. He and other law-enforcement agents who were early responders treated gunshot victims as they waited for the scene to be cleared and secured so emergency medical personnel could be allowed into the Safeway parking lot.

Caudillo and two other deputies discussed the ordeal at a news conference in which officials credited a new first-aid-training program that includes military battlefield tactics for helping save lives.

Sheriff's Department SWAT team medic David Kleinman developed the field-trauma training about three years ago to better prepare his SWAT members to handle medical emergencies.

Six months ago, Capt. Byron Gwaltney, the Giffords shooting incident commander, expanded the training, named the First Five Minutes, to include all deputies.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department is one of the few Arizona law-enforcement agencies to train in this type of field-trauma response, Kleinman said.

"(Emergency medical services) can get on scene very, very rapidly, but there are many instance when EMS is not able to get on the scene quick enough," Kleinman said. "I wanted to give police officers not only knowledge, but the equipment, to go ahead and make those decisions and stabilize patients."

A kit that each officer carries contains a compression bandage, combat gauze, a chest seal, a tourniquet and trauma shears. The items are designed to stop bleeding from gunshot, stabbing or other violent injuries. From the time the first officer arrived at the Safeway store, it took deputies about six minutes to clear the scene, Gwaltney said. For those first six minutes, the only people providing first-aid were sheriff's deputies.

Gwaltney defended the department's decision to hold off about six minutes before allowing emergency medical personnel on the scene. The first few minutes were chaotic and authorities had to be sure there was not another suspect on the loose, Gwaltney said.

"There were lots of people covered in blood," he said. "We had to ask, 'Do we have all the suspects?' "

A decade ago, the first law-enforcement officers on a scene were poorly equipped for tragedies such as the Tucson shooting, Gwaltney said. Deputies waiting for a scene to clear were not able to do much more than offer basic first aid and await paramedics.

"Without these tools, I would've just been holding pressure on gunshot wounds," Caudillo said.

Deputy Matthew Salmon said he arrived to an eerily silent scene, and he instantly called on his trauma training, grabbed his kit off his front seat and started working on two victims with gunshot wounds.

Emergency-room Dr. Kathy Hiller, who was waiting at University Medical Center for the victims, said she saw compression bandages on many of the patients.

"If you can say a success came out of a tragedy, then this is one of the examples," Hiller said.

The initial care, from law enforcement to EMS to the hospital, was seamless, she said.

"That speaks highly of the training these people received," Hiller said.